Fair Isle Workshop

To start this year off learning something new I decided to go to Ovelha Negra this past Saturday and join in on the Fair Isle workshop given by Fernanda. I even knit Portuguese style, which I'd been practicing all over the Christmas break. Fernanda explained things fantastically, I really learned a lot, and I personally believe that knitting Fair Isle in Portuguese style is a lot easier than knitting in continental style, that's not to say that I won't even knit in continental style again, because there are some things that are just easier that way. But anytime I'm knitting Fair Isle from now on, it will be in Portuguese style for sure.

So below I leave you with some photos from the workshop.

Mittens

At the beginning of April, my LYS had a workshop for making gloves/mittens. During the workshop we learned two ways of making the thumb gusset, and we made a mini mitten, which would probably fit a 2-3 yr old. We got some lovely Rowan Kid Classic (50g=140m/153yards, 70% lambswool, 26% kid mohair, 4% nylon). I wasn't going to start them straight away as I had a lot of other things to finish, but one of my fellow workshop friends told me on Sunday that she'd already started, and I caved. I completed one whole mitten in about 4 hours and started on the second one, but I couldn't finish it that night and finished it he following day. The pattern is so easy to follow, so thank you Xana & Ovelha for the pattern. In case you're wondering this colorway is 841 - lilac, I also got a really nice burgundy color to make a pair for myself, but I'm first going to finish some other things that I have on the needles. Besides, spring is here, apart from the occasional rainy day, it is no longer cold enough to justify wearing mittens.

Sock Workshop at Ovelha Negra

As mentioned in my previous post I went to a workshop at my LNS - Ovelha Negra to learn how to knit a sock properly. Well Xana, our teacher, had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare the workshop. She'd made little books with the pattern we would be knitting during the workshop (the paper in the background); she'd cut all the sheep shaped yarn holder out of pretty tough cardboard and wound all the yarn on it (don't you just love the green colour, will need to ask if there is any more of this yarn available); then out of MDF type wood she cut out a foot/leg shape and added a coat of varnish so that we can use it to dry our socks on for them to retain their shape (not in the photos); she also made the goody bag (photo below) from scratch including the embroidery on the front and Ovelha Negra donated the contents.

So I arrived at about 14.45, only 15 minutes before we were supposed to start and as I walk in, the lights go out, luckily it wasn't too dark a day, but we ended up getting candles and lighthing them as the afternoon wore on.

Well the goodies in the bag were two balls of Regia 6-ply sock yarn, colour shade Nordic, a set of 5 Addi DPNs in wood (lovely and soft, fantastic to work with) and of course a pattern for a medium sized woman's foot. I promised myself not to start it yet as I still have so much stuff to finish, but I just couldn't help myself, and so now it's been delegated to lunchtime knitting, in other words it only comes out at lunch time at the office. Having only started it yesterday, I've already managed to reach the part of the heel flap on the first sock, that's how quickly the yarn knits up, and the needles really help a lot also.

The sock we knitted in the workshop won't actually fit my foot as I was running out of yarn and we were all running out of light (the lights eventually came on around 19.00 when we were just about to leave). It's a cute little sock though, and I'll probably hang it up somewhere around the house as a reminder of the workshop. Xana was a great teacher, and trust me seeing as the instructions are all in Portuguese I really needed her help as I don't read patterns in any language other than English. Ovelha Negra also deserves a big thank you for hosting this workshop and giving us this lovely yarn and needles to make our first pair of socks. I learned a lot, loads of neat little tricks and from now on I won't be afraid of knitting socks, and I'll get them to look like socks and not deformed things like my first attempt.